Reno Hayek Symposium

Historically unions have helped reformed abusive labor practices in factories, mines, construction sites and sweat shops; they have negotiated a living wage and a livable work week; they have negotiated overtime compensation and reasonable holidays, sick leave and safe working conditions. All this has been accomplished in the 19th century in private industry where job classifications were few and work common among classifications. Their clout derived from membership and the ability to strike. Members realized that their power lay in hanging together. The accepted the mediocrity inherent in group behavior. One member would not try to work too hard to show up another less hungry member.

But there was a common interest shared between management and labor, namely the success of the enterprise; if that failed, both sides failed.

Fast forward to today and an excellent article by Warner Todd Huston in the December 5th Nevada News & Views, Two Americas: One Struggling-One Happy, Unionized, and in Government! He cites a recent Rasmussen poll highlighting the difference in perception between government workers and workers in the real world. He points up the incestuous, unholy alliance between politicians and their union bosses. Witness SEIU president Andy Stern’s 21 visits to Obama in less than a year. He reiterates what we’ve all said before: unionism is antithetical to good government, thus public employee unions should be outlawed.

But why? Unlike the private sector where the success of the enterprise is a common shared interest, public employee unions and their employed politicians have no common shared interest other than mutual survival. By definition mutual survival of career bureaucrats and career politicians is not in the common good.

The cartoon from my December 13th post on abusive compensation lightly describes the situation. More to the point though is an excellent study by Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute on Employee Compensation in State and Local Government. He notes the state deficits and unfunded liabilities and points out that wages and benefits account for fully half of government spending. The differences between government and the private sector dramatically favor government employees in both areas, 34% advantage in wages and 70% in benefits! He charts a major factor for the difference, unionization. Where the differences are the greatest, unions have the greatest representation. He promises another study with more detail on this aspect.

More scary yet, Barack Hussein Obama’s appointment of Erroll Southers to head the Transportation Security Administration. Apparently is being brought in to unionize the TSA. Senator Jim DeMint has blocked the nomination under senatorial privilege. (See WSJ January 4th report.) Given the attempted Christmas aircraft bombing, and that lamebrain Napolitano heads Homeland Security, the last thing we need is a unionized TSA.

But keep in mind, while it may be the last thing we need, it is probably the first thing Barack Hussein Obama needs. With polls looking a bit shaky for him, he needs all the money Andy Stern can fork over. And Andy Stern’s SEIU is the second largest public services union with more than a million government employees contributing dues!

Simply stated, unions have no place in the public sector and should be outlawed.

Tom Motherway